Business: Money Transfer Apps Easy For Users…And Thieves

In this digital age we are moving further away from paying for things with hard currency and using digital means to process payments. Namely, hugely popular apps such as Zelle and Venmo. While convenient to send and receive funds they also are easily subjected to targeting by scammers and thieves.

A 1978 federal rule called Regulation E says banks must make clients whole if their money is stolen from a consumer account through an electronic payment initiated by another person. In the post-payment app era guidelines have been written that extend to all person-to-person online payments. Banks are now responsible if a payment is made by someone other than the customer without the customer’s consent.

But while they are compelled to make good via federal law banks in many cases pay back very little or not at all. The “fraud is piling up.”